Connecting to the heart of the community.
Civic Arts is a community planning and creative placemaking organization. We help municipalities, arts organizations, and public agencies embed belonging into the plans, projects, and programs they’re already building.
Civic Arts grew out of two decades of work at the intersection of arts practice and civic process.
Founded in Austin, Texas, Civic Arts began from a simple conviction: that communities are not audiences for plans made about them, but the authors of the places they live. Early engagements with municipal partners, parks departments, and cultural organizations tested that idea across cultural plans, public art frameworks, and arts-based engagement.
Over time those projects cohered into a method — the Practice of Place — and a national practice spanning municipal plans, federal research initiatives, and field-building. Today Civic Arts works with cities, counties, arts organizations, and funders across North America, carrying the same orientation into every project: belonging, creativity, and place as the building blocks of better community outcomes.
The Rev. Dr. Lynn Osgood
Founder & Executive Director
Lynn founded Civic Arts to work in the space between arts practice and civic process. She holds a Ph.D. in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin, where her research focused on arts-based civic processes, and she has spent much of her career helping communities recognize themselves not as audiences or recipients of programs, but as makers of their own places.
Across municipal plans, federal research initiatives, and field-building efforts nationwide, her practice translates complex cultural, civic, and methodological ideas into language that helps people build a common life together. Connect with Lynn
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